Our team

Our Team

Dr Paul Harper, Chairman

Dr Paul Harper has over 35 years’ experience in the life sciences industry covering both drug development and medical devices. He is an NED of Reneuron Holdings plc, an AIM quoted company. In addition, he is an adviser to the Board of CamStent Ltd. Paul has served as Chairman of Oval Medical Technologies and of Sareum plc, Chief Executive of Cambridge Antibody Technology Limited, and founded Provensis Limited. He has also served as Corporate Development Director of Unipath Limited, then the medical diagnostics business of Unilever PLC, and as Director of Research and Development for Johnson & Johnson Limited. Formerly head of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy for Glaxo PLC, Paul has a PhD in Molecular Virology and is the author of over 50 publications.

Dr Jim Millen, Chief Executive Officer

Jim joined Physiomics in April 2016, bringing over 15 years’ experience in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology gained at a number of blue chip global companies as well as smaller UK-based organisations. At Allergan, Jim was responsible for corporate development in its Europe, Africa and Middle East region where he was pivotal in expanding the company’s geographical footprint before moving to a senior role responsible for commercial strategy and market access. Prior to that, at GSK, Jim held business development roles of increasing responsibility including within the company’s innovative Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery. In the last 18 months Jim has supported a number of smaller companies in fund raising and strategic partnering activities. Over the course of his career he has completed an array of deals worth many hundreds of millions of dollars, spanning licencing, acquisition, divestment, development and commercialisation.

Jim studied medicine at Queens’ College, Cambridge University and qualified as a doctor from the London Medical School. He holds an MBA from INSEAD.

Dr Christophe Chassagnole, Chief Operating Officer

Dr Christophe Chassagnole has been involved in systems biology and bio-computing projects since the mid-nineties, with experience in both academic and industrial environments. His Doctorate was achieved at the Victor Segalen-Bordeaux II University, and then he held a post doctorate position with IBVT at Stuttgart University. Before Joining Physiomics Dr Chassagnole worked in France as a senior researcher for CRITT Bio-Industries (Toulouse) for 3 years. He joined Physiomics in May 2004 as project leader to develop the model portfolio of the company. He was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Physiomics in May 2007.

Anthony Clayden, Head of Finance

Anthony Clayden is a Finance Director and Company Secretary with over 16 years’ experience directing or advising over 30 high growth potential businesses of differing size and complexity and brings broad experience of strategic, operational and financial matters. His career encompasses a number of businesses in the life sciences and healthcare sector including 6 years as Chief Financial Officer of AIM quoted Futura Medical plc where he was involved in its IPO and a series of placings. Previously, Anthony worked with KPMG and PwC on a range of corporate finance matters including fundraisings, company sales and acquisition advice. Anthony has a B.Sc. (Hons) in Natural Sciences from Durham University and is a Qualified Chartered Accountant.

Dr Frances Brightman, Project Leader

Frances Brightman is a computational biology specialist, with 14 years’ post-doctoral experience in both commercial and academic environments. In 2001 she was awarded a PhD from Oxford Brookes University, where she worked with Professor David Fell on the modelling and simulation of cell signalling processes. For the next seven years Frances was employed by Cyprotex, a CRO specialising in preclinical ADME toxicology, to formulate, implement and validate physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models; she subsequently returned to David Fell’s group at Oxford Brookes University for three years to investigate dynamic modelling and quantitative analysis of mammalian mitochondrial metabolism. Frances joined Physiomics in September 2010 as a senior simulation scientist and was promoted to Project leader in 2014.

Dr Fernando Ortega, Senior PK/PD Modeller

Fernando Ortega, holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Barcelona in 2004. The area of study focussed on developing new methods for the understanding of metabolic and signalling networks. In 2005, he moved to the University of Birmingham to participate in a NERC funded project in the area of fish toxicogenomics with the objective of linking changes in fish genetics and metabonomics networks with the presence of a wide spectrum of pollutants in different UK estuaries and rivers. In 2008, he started to work in the Computational Biology group at AstraZeneca where he worked in a wide variety of projects mainly related to metabolic diseases. Also, he worked in Alzheimer’s disease, more specifically developing models of Amyloid-β formation. He was awarded a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester in 2014 where he developed statistic/mechanistic models in oncology and he continued developing mathematical models that consider different of aspects of Amyloid-β formation and accumulation. Fernando joined Physiomics in November 2016.

Dr Claire Villette, Biosimulation Scientist

Claire Villette is a biomedical computational scientist with 6 years’ experience in multiscale modelling of biological tissue growth. In 2016, she was awarded a PhD in Computational Biomechanics from Imperial College London where she developed models of bone remodelling under loading. Claire was then awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize fellowship to investigate new digital design optimisation techniques for tissue engineering scaffolds using machine learning algorithms. Claire has also completed a secondment at an Imperial College spin-out where she developed a commercial software application for tailored tissue engineering. Claire joined Physiomics in 2018 as a Biosimulation scientist.

Dr Hitesh Mistry, Principal Consultant, Clinical Modelling

Dr Hitesh Mistry, holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from The University of Manchester and is now a modelling and simulation specialist within the pharmaceutical industry. He has worked in projects from target identification (systems biology) through to clinical development (population PKPD) in a variety of therapeutic areas with particular focus on Oncology. His work in early clinical oncology at AstraZeneca, building a translational disease model for Prostate Cancer, culminated in being awarded an AstraZeneca Oncology Innovation Award in 2012. Furthermore, he was also involved in developing and deploying the first systems biology/pharmacology project routinely used within AstraZeneca in the cardiac toxicity area. Hitesh joined Physiomics in January 2013, as a senior simulation scientist, to lead the Virtual Tumour clinical development.

Professor David Fell, Co-Founder and Scientific Advisory Board member

David Fell is Professor of Biochemistry and he is Assistant Dean of the School of Life Sciences at Oxford Brookes University and is recognised as an expert in systems biology and metabolic modelling. Professor Fell runs a research team at Oxford Brookes University where current projects include the analysis of the structure of metabolic networks, the computer simulation of signal transduction and elementary modes for the analysis of metabolism and metabolic engineering. He is the author or co-author more than 100 scientific publications attracting over 5000 citations and has written one of the standard textbooks, ‘‘Understanding the Control of Metabolism’’ in the area of metabolic control analysis. David has held positions in, or chaired, a number of editorial boards, policy committees and international strategy panels in metabolic engineering and systems biology. Professor Fell has been involved with the Company since 2001.

David Orrell is an applied mathematician, with a PhD from Oxford University on the prediction of nonlinear systems. He has worked in diverse areas including weather forecasting, economics, and systems biology, and at Physiomics is working on model development. He has written over 20 research papers, and is the author of several books including The Future of Everything: The Science of Prediction.

Dr Robert Jackson, Consultant and Scientific Advisory Board member

Robert Jackson obtained his PhD in biochemical pharmacology from the Institute of Cancer Research (University of London) followed by postdoctoral positions at Yale University and Scripps Clinic. Appointments in multinational pharmaceutical companies included Director, Chemotherapy Department, at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research (Ann Arbor, Michigan) and Group Director, Cancer Research, at DuPont (Wilmington, Delaware). In 1991 he became Vice President, Research and Development, at Agouron Pharmaceuticals (La Jolla, California), and in 1997 Chief Operating Officer of Chiroscience Ltd, Cambridge UK. As project manager or R&D director, he supervised the development of several marketed drugs, including the anticancer agents pentostatin, trimetrexate and losoxantrone, the HIV protease inhibitor nelfinavir, and the local anaesthetic chirocaine. He is author of two books and over 170 other publications, mainly dealing with anticancer and antiviral drugs, and with theoretical pharmacology. Post-retirement, his activities have included chairing the Discovery Committee of Cancer Research UK, and industry consulting.

Mark Middleton is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine in the Department of Oncology and consultant Medical Oncologist at the Oxford Cancer and Haematology Centre. Mark is the Lead Cancer Clinician for the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and deputy director of the Cancer Research UK Oxford Centre. He directs the EPCTU and the Cancer Theme of the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre. He studied medicine at Cambridge and Oxford and trained in medical oncology at the Christie Hospital. Mark is a member of the International Melanoma Working Group and of the NCRI Melanoma Clinical Studies Group. He leads several clinical trials in the national portfolio with an emphasis on early phase trials of new drugs or drug combinations.

Mrs Charmaine Fraser, Administration Manager

Charmaine Fraser joined Physiomics in 2008, bringing with her over 10 years of Administrative and Managerial experience. In Charmaine’s previous employment she was an Office Manager for an Automotive Rental company that had dealings with the MOD. With her vast skill base and her structured and methodical approach to her role, she is able to coordinate the running of the administrative side of the company, ensuring that it runs smoothly and in a timely manner.